The Blossoming Islamic Start-Up Scene with Chris Abdur-Rahman Blauvelt

In January 2018, our Conversations series kicked off with the topic of “The Blossoming Islamic Start-Up Scene” with Mr Chris Abdulrahman Blauvett, CEO and founder of US-based LaunchGood. LaunchGood is a Muslim startup company based in Detroit, whose primary purpose is to provide crowdfunding platforms focused on the needs of the international Muslim community. Over 6000 campaigns across 124 countries, including Singapore, have been successfully launched on the platform.

During his visit to Singapore, Chris shared his startup journey with more than 90 youth participants. He talked about the process of how he started LaunchGood with his team and the challenges they faced and overcame. He shared that the philosophy behind LaunchGood goes beyond the typical profit motive, but is also driven to serve the community at large, in line with the lessons and life of Prophet Muhammad s.a.w. LaunchGood selects campaigns to encourage others to launch good deeds and contribute to the larger society. Chris also highlighted that while LaunchGood began by focussing on the Muslim community, its contributions ripple far beyond. Among its other ventures, in 2018, LaunchGood partnered a local Muslim online group Celebrate Mercy to raise funds for the repair works to tackle the damage done to Jewish cemeteries in the US as a result of anti-semitism.